


Lost and Found

by ManiLea



Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: Apologies, Gen, Hospitalization, Injury, Justice League parents, Makeup, Wonderbat Milestones, implied Wonderbat, superwonderbat if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 11:52:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15142487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManiLea/pseuds/ManiLea
Summary: A tie-in to the Justice Lost storyline: Bruce returns to the Justice League to discover that Diana was mortally wounded in his absence and is forced to rethink his work attitude. Written for the WonderBatMilestones event on Tumblr.





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:** Teammates  
>  **Comics:** The People vs the Justice League  & Justice Lost by Christopher Priest (Justice League 2016–)  
>  **Music:** Don't Say – The Chainsmokers ft. Emily Warren

They had decided to withdraw from the dispute – unanimously, Bruce had thought. They were doing more harm than good. Then Diana, ignoring her teammates, stepped forward and asked the refugees if they would allow her to visit them from time to time to act as a peacekeeper. She spoke so gracefully that it didn’t seem to matter that she was one of the ‘Just-us League’. They agreed right away.

It was a barb at him. _‘My mission to man’s world isn’t always compatible with the League’s charter’_ , she had told him in the watchtower. She no longer had faith in his charter or his leadership.

A breeze moved her hair, revealing a bloody slit on her throat. Clark had said she’d been injured, but he hadn’t said anything about a wound so deep and lethally placed that she should be dead.

“Diana, what–”

She turned her back on him. “Flash, please bring Raven to me.”

“You need to get to a hospital now,” urged Barry.

“I’ll meet you at the Nairobi Central.”

She took off into the air before anyone could say another word. Bruce was about to round on Clark, but he took off too and caught Diana around the waist just as she started to sink. They quickly blurred into a red and blue dot, so Bruce jumped into his plane and followed them at high speed.

He found the ward in which Diana had been placed by following the trail of visitors who were staring down corridors and excitedly muttering “Wonder Woman!” and “Superman!”. They stared at him too, but he didn’t stop for anyone who approached him.

Clark was sitting in a waiting room with his head propped up on his elbows. His face darkened when he saw Bruce.

“What the hell happened?” growled Bruce.

“Work it out, detective,” Clark replied bitterly. “Someone fired, it bounced off me and went into her neck.”

A tall scarlet-clad figure and a girl in a purple cloak came from a corridor looking solemn. It was Barry, with Raven.

“I took away her pain to allow her to fight death within her inner consciousness,” Raven explained to Bruce. “That’s why she was able to return to the battle. I had to return the pain to her now. She has lost a lot of blood, though the wound is sealed. But with rest and the will to live, she should be restored.”

“That’s another way of saying, ‘don’t piss her off more than you already have’,” said Barry.

“She didn’t get shot under my watch. Diana doesn’t simply get shot.” Bruce directed his words at Clark. “You screwed up more than I thought possible and didn’t even have the guts to tell me.”

Clark stood up to look him in the eye. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you would react like this. We had a job to do. If you’re going to blame someone, Bruce, maybe think about the fact that you left because you can’t handle not being in charge.”

“I left to deal with the Fan! I did more good for the team outside of it than all of you did together. You – Diana – she could be dead because of you!”

Clark looked murderous, but he pressed his lips into a line and turned to the tiny round nurse who was waiting to speak to him. Barry and Raven had left without Bruce noticing.

“You are the friend of Wonder Woman? You may go in to see her.” Bruce started to follow Clark but the nurse held up a hand. “One visitor at a time.”

There was a vending machine in the corner. He slotted in some coins and keyed in the number for the double espresso, ignoring the voice in his head that told him that coffee wasn’t a substitute for sleep. He hardly knew what it was any more, to give into tiredness and pain. He always powered through until one of them took him first. The espresso spattered out into a thin polystyrene cup.

Fifteen minutes passed in what felt like hours. He gulped down two more polystyrene espressos. At last Clark came out, but flew straight past him and out of the ward.

Bruce got up and headed in the direction Clark had come from, but the nurse was in his way again.

“I’m a friend of Wonder Woman.”

“Hmph,” she said, as if he wasn’t towering over her dressed as a bat, with his symbol emblazoned on his chest. “The patient needs rest. You have five minutes.”

Diana was lying in a steel wheeled bed at one end of a large, uniformly pale green room. He thought she might already be asleep but as he bent over her, he saw that her eyes were half-closed and her forehead was creased. Her body was in shock from the return of its pain.

Bruce drew up the plastic green chair, threaded his fingers into the spread of her hair and leant his head on her burning arm. 

“I know you’re still mad at me. Just… please pull through.” She stirred but didn’t speak. “Maybe I made the wrong call on that mission. I messed up. It happens. I can’t function at a high level all the time like the rest of you do. I’m only human.”

Her body shook with a rasping laugh.

“You blamed Clark! Now this nonsense?” she croaked. Bruce lifted his head. She was looking at him reproachfully. “You and I often don’t see eye to eye. I can live with that. But you just walked away…”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I am sorry too. Because you do so much, it is as if you are the most superhuman of all of us. And the more you do, the more we rely on you and forget to use our own brains.”

“I’ve been running the League like I run my operations in Gotham. I’ve been treating you all like children. We need a flatter organisational structure. We need a chairman, not a boss.”

“I was glad when you chose Victor to lead. I thought you would choose Clark. He’s too impulsive. Victor is diplomatic and thoughtful.”

“He’s too diplomatic. I knew he would screw up.”

“Bruce!” 

She made an attempt to hit him, but it ended as a feeble pat on his arm. He took her hand in his and held it firmly.

“He waits around for us to tell him what to do. I knew if he became leader he’d waste all his energy trying to please everyone – not being a chairman, but a doormat. It was only when he dug himself into a well that he started to take some real initiative.”

“Your lesson almost got him killed.” She sighed and tilted her head back into the pillow. “But – do you know what Simon said a while back? That you, me, Clark and Barry were the only ones who mattered. The rest of them are background cast.”

“They make themselves so by thinking like that.”

“Tell Victor the truth,” she said softly, resting their intertwined hands against his cheek. “Apologise to Clark. They’re the ones you need to look out for now.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Will you go and apologise to them?”

“Only if you promise to still be here when I come back.”

“I promise.”

Bruce kissed her hand. “Then I will go.”

_Go right ahead, say almost anything you want  
Just don't say, don't say you're human. _


End file.
